Photograph of a view through a gateway surmounted by a pediment with a crest featuring a crown and lion rampant in the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town. An octagonal tower rises directly above the gateway. The gateway is guarded by soldiers, two of whom wear pith helmets and one of whom stands by a sentry box on the left.

On February 24th 1881, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George left HMS Bacchante to visit Cape Town where they climbed Table Mountain and visited Government House. The Castle of Good Hope, or Cape Town Castle was built during the 17th century by the Dutch East India Company.   

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882.